I received this message from my hubby on my phone. It said, “This Dog!” With it was a photo of Beau seated outside on our porch at home.

Let me explain before you view the photo: When we got Beau in November 2012 from the Big Dog Rescue, they guesstimated his age at about one year, from his dentition. He is a big dog. His breed is known for the generous size. While on the one hand we understood he’s still a puppy, when we compare him to our Lab, Luke, it’s easy enough to have the misconception that he’s an adult. That is, until we get pitched curve balls mishaps that are common to pups.

For the past month, we’ve been having the chewing problems. Yes, he has chewed a lot of things: The TV remote, the notepads, pens and pencils in the kitchen, paper towels, box of disposable gloves, my oven mitts, some magazines, to name a few, and his beds. Perhaps we should count our blessings that we have been very careful, especially after hubby went into the Great Dane Forums and discovered that the breed has been known to chew entire sofas and portable appliances. We feel so fortunate, so far (eyeballs rolling). Pat, pat on the back, right? Not really.

I had to throw out the first bed he chewed. There was no salvaging it. It was in a million pieces all over the kitchen floor. This second bed, I have re-stuffed (we collected the batting!) and sewn it together in five spots over the past two weeks. Then last Friday, there was a fist size hole with more batting in the kitchen. We collected the batting, sprayed “Bitter Yuck” on the batting, stuffed it back in and this time, I needed to sew a patch. I found only a bright pink piece of fabric to use. Ah well, this should not threaten his dog-hood.

Over the weekend, we resorted to placing his bed on the high granite table (bar table height) outside our kitchen, to air it out. This also prevented him from spending too much time going back to his bed when the weather was so great outside. It seemed to work.

Yesterday morning, hubby placed the bed again on the high table outside. Then he went to take his shower. He came out fully dressed for work and started whistling for Beau. No response. There was none of the familiar cling-cling sound that his ID tags makes when he’s running back to the house. Hubby walked to the porch and started calling him over. Still no answer.

And just as hubby was turning to go back into the kitchen, there was Beau sitting on his bed, on top of the table!!!

Beau on his bed on top of table, Photo Credit Louie Ortiz-Luis

What can I say? He loves his bed—too much! And yes, he can leap great heights in a single bound, with no head start needed. (He’s sounding like a superhero I know…)